Share via

The mental effort of struggling to make ends meet leads to an effective
reduction in IQ, according to scientists.

The study showed that financial worries appear to divert brain power and
create a “cognitive deficit” equivalent to a 13-point loss on IQ tests.

The findings do not imply that people who are poor are less intelligent, but
rather that the demands of poverty uses up “mental bandwidth”. Sendhil
Mullainathan, the Harvard economist who led the research, said: “Our results
suggest that when you’re poor, money is not the only thing in short supply.
Cognitive capacity is also stretched thin.”